Geranium

Part I

Observe yon sweet geranium flower.
How straight upon its stalk it stands,
And tempts our violating hands,
Whilst the soft bud, as yet unspread,
Hangs down its pale declining head.

---Richard Brinsley Sheridan, "The Geranium"

London, 1799

“Did you enjoy yourself, sir?” she asked, her breath warm against his cheek.  “I understand Mr. H doesn’t care for music, but I hoped you might find the performance diverting.”

The lady being between engagements, they had gone to see a musical farce called Sunshine After Rain.  Even though the play had received wildly divergent reviews (“certainly not Mr. Dibdin’s best work . . . .”), he had eagerly agreed to attend.  An evening at Covent Garden would at least allow him to sit close beside her in the dark box.

It was not so much that he had failed to enjoy the performance as that he had taken very little notice of it.  He could think of nothing but her flowery scent, her intriguing decollatage and, above all, how sublime it would be if they could have had that box to themselves.

Now at last they were alone in the well-appointed carriage conveying them to her borrowed house.  The dusky interior was a rather sublime place to be in itself.  Without thinking he had shifted himself from his own seat onto the bench next to his companion, rustling the skirts of her embroidered ivory silk gown.  He surprised himself further by making bold to take her hand in his and beginning to unbutton her glove. He felt uncommon devilish when she did not resist.

“Miss Cobham,” he whispered.  “Do you know how long I have dreamed of being alone with you?”  

It must be something, he had mused all those months and months ago in Spain, to walk in the sun with such a lovely woman. And only the day before, he had done just that, escorting her ’round the Green Park as she dangled her hat from a broad aquamarine ribbon. One moment she was attentive to the spring flowers, the breeze, or the budding leaves.  The next she was regarding him steadily, her eyes impossibly blue, her eyelashes impossibly long, so that his head swelled, his heart beat faster, and (if he were honest about it) his britches felt a bit tighter as well.

He was perfectly aware that they garnered more than one curious or admiring glance from passersby, so that he’d thrown his shoulders back, tugging at his uniform jacket.  Oh, he was preening and he knew it, but could not help himself.

The gaze she had turned upon him during their stroll yesterday was the same lucid gaze she had fixed him with when he called upon her in her dressing room at Drury Lane the week before.  He was almost surprised that she had recognized him.  She could have only recalled him as a freed but still wretched prisoner of Spain, a wasted shell of himself.  But she had greeted him as an old friend.

“Mr. Kennedy!” she had exclaimed at once, dropping him a charming if rather arch curtsey as he placed his hand on his heart.  “You are much improved, I see.”

He laughed easily, knowing it was the truth, delighted that she recognized him.  Miss Cobham did not miss much and she did not mince words, so if she found him improved he must indeed be so.  She was of course compelling onstage (he had seen her performances many times in the past) but offstage she was warm and magnetic and something more -- she was full of life, that was it, and brave, too, as he well knew.

In light of her gracious welcome he could not even summon much jealousy that his friend Horatio had always seemed to interest her most.  She had hardly spoken three words to him in Spain, and he had been too despondent to care at the time.  Later, though, he remembered her cool hand on his fevered brow, her obvious concern for his condition.  He even recalled her smiling at him from the doorway the morning after his fever had broken.  Later still, he was visited by images of her on the stage -- Cleopatra, Lady Macbeth, Miss Hardcastle -- and then, God help him, by more intimate images altogether.

For Lieutenant Archibald Kennedy was now a different man than the pale and wan midshipman she had last seen.  As his current endeavor illustrated.  His fingers worked at the little pearl buttons on her long glove, loosening them until he could slide it slowly down the length of her slim arm.

“I think you might call me Kitty,” she said softly in the shadows.  

Men fell at her feet to perform favors for Kitty Cobham, hence the sleek carriage, the exclusive use of a town house in Lansdowne Row. Horatio had said she counted among her friends those who could be found in “high places and low,” and she hardly seemed to discriminate.  Yet, she did not seem obligated to any of them.

Upon his arrival in London Friday week, Archie had seen her name on the playbill for Much Ado About Nothing at Drury Lane, closing the next day.  He had put aside any other plans in order to attend and she was perfect as Beatrice, as he had known she would be, her native wit and intelligence more than a match for the Bard’s clever wordplay.

To call upon her or not?  Why not? he rationalized.  I should at least give her Horatio’s compliments, tell her that we will soon be transferred to a man-o-war.  But basking in her welcoming smile, thoughts of his friend had flown out of his head.  Impulsively, his heart in his throat, he had asked her to tea on the Monday.

The weather being fine he had taken her to Ranelagh Gardens and the rest, he said to himself later (a bit smugly) was history.  He was not surprised to learn they had much in common, though he rather thought she had been.  He’d loved the theatre as a boy, still loved plays and still read them.  They shared a similar taste for the classics and an amused contempt for that which was shoddy or trite.

And they both had a tendency to directness in their conversation and their relations with others.  She flirted with him, but not outrageously so.  He responded, but was not improperly familiar.  These things took time, he was given to understand, and he had three whole weeks before he was required to quit London for Portsmouth.

The carriage halted momentarily and one of the horses gave a low snort, snapping him out of his reverie.  “Mmm,” he said, bending his head as he lifted the inside of her naked wrist to his lips.  It had been a week, after all.

“I should rather call you Katherine,” he murmured after a moment.  “‘Kitty’ is lovely, but it’s a name for a sweet pet.  And you -- you are the most beautiful, desirable woman in the world.”

“Mr. Kennedy, I fear you are a bit well to live this evening,” she laughed, not unkindly. “You cannot have seen even half of all the women in the world.”  

She was touched, however, and perhaps something more, for she was growing attached to this vigorous, sincere young officer.  A bit too young, if she were honest with herself.  She sighed inwardly.  More than a bit, Kitty my girl.  Fool others if you like, not yourself.

But he had changed so -- slightly taller, broader in the shoulders, tanned, and sporting the light golden shadow of a robust beard. What was more, he was completely self-confident, open in his manner, bien dans sa peau as the French would say -- comfortable in his own skin.  Definitely a man and no longer a boy.

“’Twould not matter if I had seen them all,” he said to her now, his voice husky.  “I’ve seen you.”  His eyes were at half mast as he opened her palm and kissed it hotly.  Until this moment, they had indulged in nothing more than wordplay and each others’ company.  Now his ardor was coming dangerously close to dismantling her resistance, for her usually disciplined body was reacting to his attentions in some very marked ways.

She heard the coachman call out to the horses and they slowed to a stop in front of her door.  Archie did not protest as she took her glove and gathered her skirts to exit the carriage, but his words -- artlessly direct, nakedly hopeful, left her speechless.

“Will I come in, then?” he asked.

Go to Part 2